Container closure



April 9, 1940. R. w. TAYLOR CONTAINER CLOSURE Filed Dec. 17, 1936 Patented Apr. 9, 1940 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE 3 Claims.

This invention relates to improvements in container closures, and its objects are as follow:

First, to provide a container closure of the threaded type, in which the threads are embodied 5 in a floating member, said thread member being inherently loose from its carrying or actuating member so that, upon temporary initial removal of said thread member, the carrying member can be ground against the seat of the container, the thread member subsequently being reemplaced and loosely secured in position.

Second, to provide a container closure of the foregoing description, in which the loosely carried or floating thread member enables the perfeet adaptation of the previously ground surface cn the carrying or actuating member to the corresponding ground surface of the container, thereby to enable the making of a fluid-tight seal.

Third, to employ a cylindrical thread member, that is to say, a thread member on which the screw threads are not of tapering configuration which enables its being screwed into place with comparative looseness, the complementary ground surfaces of the carrying member and the container producing the ultimate seal without gasket material.

Fourth, to provide a closure of the nature just described, in which the first unscrewing effort is. devoted solely to breaking the seal at the ground joint, the foregoing comparative looseness then'coming into evidence and serving the useful purpose of enabling a limited relative movement of the actuating or carrying member so that by working the wrench a few times in the proper direction the resulting impacts or jolts of the actuating member against the thread member will break the adhesion of the threads so that unscrewing can be accomplished by a mere subsequent overcoming of gravity.

Fifth, to provide a closure in which the characteristic of relative looseness between the thread member and its carrying or actuating member makes the closure especially adaptable to containers wherein gas under varying degrees of pressure is likely to be entrapped, the initial break of the ground joint and the subsequent partial loosening and unscrewing of the thread member enabling the escape of any pressure from the container around the loose thread member.

Sixth, to provide a closure in which the removal of the floating thread member in any of its uses enables a subsequent refinishing of its ground joint surface to its original fineness, which facility would be impossible if the thread member were either integrally or otherwise so secured to the carrying member that separation would be impossible.

Other objects and advantages will appear in the following specification, reference being had 5 to the accompanying drawing, in which:

Figure 1 is a sectional perspective view of one type of container to the closure of which the improved floating thread member is applied,

Figure 2 is a cross section taken substantially 10 on the line 22 of Figure 1,

Figure 3 is a perspective view of the floating thread member,

F gure 4 is a partially sectional and elevational view illustrating the adaptation of the floating 1 thread member to a barrel or tank plug, and

Figure 5 is a cross section taken on, the line 5-5 of Figure 4.

As it will be understood from the foregoing statements of the objects of the invention, the Q0 latter is virtually unlimited in its application to a wide variety of commercial uses. Inasmuch as it is practically impossible, in fact unnecessary, to state all of the uses of the invention and to set out the various types of screw threads capable 25 of employment as well as the various styles of containers with which the device can be used, the instant disclosure has been limited to a few examples which are thought to make the principle and broad sense of the invention plain a0 enough. I

The first example is that of the bottle I. The neck 2, external screw threads 3 and rim 4 are all familiar parts of the bottle. The improvement lies in the cap 5 and its carried parts. ternal shape of the cap is not material to the invention, excepting the presence of and necessity for some kind of retainer means 6, here in the form of a flange, for the purpose of confining the floating thread member 1 on its hollow in- 4 terior.

The floating thread member I is retained and substantially enclosed by the cap 5 which is hereinaiter known as the carrying or actuating member. The specific manner in which the reten- 45 tion is accomplished and maintained is brought out in detail below. The floating thread member is also initially separable from the cap. This enables an initial removal of the thread member from the cap so that the latter can be groundseated at its closure wall upon the rim 4 at the place a. The carrying member thus also becomes one of the seat-bearing members, the complementary seat being on the rim 4. A ground joint is perfected when the thread member is u The ex- 35 a between the rim 4 and the cap 5 at a.

later reassembled in the cap and loosely held therein by the flange 6, and then screwed home on the neck 2 of the container, as shown. The manner of producing the flange, or the aifixation of equivalent retaining means, is not so important, spinning or some other upsetting operation being resorted to (in the event of using the flange) for keeping the member 1 in place after its insertion into the cap S. The internal rim of the flange defines an opening in confronting relationship to the ground seat on the closure wall.

The foregoing hollow interior is generally denoted 8 (Fig. 2). This includes a wall of noncircular contour. The. present showing is that of an eight-sided wall, but the specific number of sides is immaterial. The outer wall 9 of the member I is correspondingly non-circular, but the member I is sufliciently undersized to leave a slight space Ill (Fig. 2) between the confronting walls. The purpose of this space is to enable the actuating member, whether in the form of the cap 5 as has been described, or in any conceivable arrangement wherein a thread member is loosely combined with an actuating member to make a fluid-sealgto be capable of a limited amount of movement relatively to the floating thread member.

The latter has an internal thread track H which, obviously, contains the external thread 3 when the bottle closure is screwed in place. The retainer means 6 of the cap holds the thread member in place and,'as in the instance of the walls 8, 9 (Fig. 2), there is a space between the top I 2 (or bottom) of the floatingthread member and the adjacent inner surface 13 of the cap.

In unscrewing the cap 5 the user has first to break the binding contact in the ground joint Thereupon his next effort is directed tmbreaking such adhesion as may be present in the thread track, the subsequent unscrewing effort merely requiring to overcome the weight of the floating thread member. As previously pointed out, the engagement of the threads 3, II is loose, for which reason the user does not have to overcome any noticeable thread friction as in an instance where the threads are tight.

So it is repeated that one of the main purposes of the loose or floating thread member 7,

while it is yet dissassembled from the cap 5, is to enable the cap to be rotated upon the neck 2 in order to grind a joint between the rim 4 and the inside top surface of the cap. Later, when the thread member I is reassembled in the cap, the originally made ground surfaces are brought into sealing contact with each other by screwing the thread member 1 onto the neck 2. The loose relationship which the thread member has to the cap enables the thread member to adapt itself to any possible unevenness in the threads or lack of perfection fin the structure between the neck and the floating thread member, so

that the ground joint can become re-established zseat 32, and wrench head 33, are a unit. The

flange-nut 34 is screwed onto the stem against the base 3|, and is held in place by the cotterpin 35 or its equivalent. The boss 3| is noncircular in cross section (Fig. 5), and when the floating thread member 36 occupies its ultimate position (Fig. 4) between the stop flange 32 and the flange-nut 34, its opening 31, or hollow interior as this part has been called before, assumes the same relationship to the actuating member as in the other forms.

The operation is briefly reviewed to make sure that the necessary emphasis has been placed on the use of the invention. Perhaps its simplest application occurs as in Fig. 1. The need for a ground joint at a is to insure against the loss of fugitive substances by evaporation, as in the case of expensive perfumes. After the ground surfaces at the rim 4 and at l3 inside of the cap have been made, the thread member I is emplaced and loosely confined as shown. It is obvious that unless the thread member I is initially separable from the cap it would not be possible to produce the ground joint because the threads would produce a progressive binding action when turning the cap in one direction, and this would prevent the circular motion necessary to the making of the ground joint.

The same is true in Fig. 4 and in every other application to which the principle of the invention can be put. The thread member is first separated from its carrying or actuating member. The latter is turned to produce the ground surfaces and after the thread member is reemplaced upon its carrying member the actuation of the latter causes the thread member to reestablish the ground joint.

When unscrewing the actuating member, the initial act is to break-the binding contact between the ground surfaces of the joint. Having broken this joint the next effort is directed to unscrewing the thread member. The foregoing break requires a greatly reduced effort, be-- cause of the play space, which play space provides for a slight momentum of the actuating member in overcoming any adhesion in the threads. Then after a fractional loosening turn, any gas entrapped in the container, especially if of the form in Fig. 4, may escape through the passages afforded around the loosely held floating thread member. This gas pressure escape occurs while the floating thread and actuating members are still in secure engagement. The

' advantage of this feature is that entrapped gas can be let off without endangering the user by the force which might impel the closure in his direction.

Reverting to the act of screwing the cap 5 onto the container, the final sealing of said cap is accomplished by giving it a few back and forth turns. At the particular stage in mind the thread member I will have been almost screwed home. The play space between the thread member and the cap is now taken advantage of to give the cap the few turns mentioned, and it is these turns that set up a grinding action, serving to clear the complementary seats 4 and a of any foreign matter which might have become interposed. After the few. back and forth turns mentioned, the cap is given its final turn to bind the thread member 1 in place and perfect the ground joint seal.

I claim: Y

1. The combination of a container and a ground seat surrounding the threaded'opening thereof,

a closure member having a complementary u 3. A container closure comprising a thread member which has an internal thread course and a peripheral non-circular portion coextensive with said thread course, and an actuating member by which said thread member is retained and substantially enclosed, said actuating member being internally non-circular tomatch said non-circular portion, having a closure wall at one end with a seat and an opening at the other end confronting the seat.

RICHARD W. TAYLOR. 

